Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Open to more than one interpretation: an ambiguous reply.
- adj. Doubtful or uncertain: "The theatrical status of her frequently derided but constantly revived plays remained ambiguous” ( Frank Rich).
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Of doubtful or uncertain nature; wanting clearness or definiteness; difficult to comprehend or distinguish; indistinct; obscure.
- Of doubtful purport; open to various interpretations; having a double meaning; equivocal.
- Wavering; undecided; hesitating: as, “ambiguous in all their doings,” Milton, Eikono-klastes (1649), p. 239.
- Using obscure or equivocal language.
- Synonyms Equivocal, etc. (see obscure), indeterminate, indefinite, indistinct, not clear, not plain, amphibolous, dubious, vague, enigmatical, dark, blind.
Wiktionary
- adj. Open to multiple interpretations.
- adj. Vague and unclear.
- adj. Of persons: hesitant; uncertain; not taking sides.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Doubtful or uncertain, particularly in respect to signification; capable of being understood in either of two or more possible senses; equivocal.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. open to two or more interpretations; or of uncertain nature or significance; or (often) intended to mislead
- adj. having no intrinsic or objective meaning; not organized in conventional patterns
- adj. having more than one possible meaning
Etymologies
- From Latin ambiguus, uncertain, from ambigere, to go about : amb-, ambi-, around; see ambi- + agere, to drive; see ag- in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“Chapter, and is when we speake or write doubtfully and that the sence may be taken two wayes, such ambiguous termes they call _Amphibologia_, we call it the _ambiguous_, or figure of sence incertaine, as if one should say _Thomas Tayler_ saw _William Tyler_ dronke, it is indifferent to thinke either th'one or th'other dronke.”
“˜ambiguous™ and that the Arabic philosophers, starting with Alfarabi, made being said in a prior and a posterior sense the main characteristic of all ambiguous terms.”
“I think someone previously used the word ambiguous, that is absolutely spot on what he wanted.”
Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph
“When a death requires a presumption, it's loved ones who can become adrift, says therapist Pauline Boss, author of two books on what she calls ambiguous loss.”
Wired: Inside the High Tech Hunt for a Missing Silicon Valley Legend
“In a state where coal is seen as the fount of prosperity, Mr. Raese has seized on what he calls ambiguous statements by Mr. Manchin on proposals for a cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse gases.”
“Leaving the boundary between human life and nature ambiguous is a Japanese virtue.”
“The person who needs to stop being ambiguous is you.”
The Volokh Conspiracy » Andrew McCarthy Sticks to His Guns (And He May Be Pointing Them at You Next)
“The decision makers cannot be bothered to learn the technology, and at various levels they express their desires in ambiguous terms that are unrelated to the system design.”
The Volokh Conspiracy » Interesting “Unauthorized Access” Case
“The violent incident is presented in ambiguous, deliberately confused flashbacks and is both comic and disturbing.”
The Guardian: Britain's best film directors show some early promise
“More ambiguous is the view from the other side of the "brane" which verifies the father's lifelong quest, but simultaneously seems detached from the central theme.”
REVIEW: The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Volume 3 edited by George Mann
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘ambiguous’.
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Academic Vocabulary
Use these and get promoted
abandon, abandonment, abnormally, abstract, abstraction, abstractly, abstracts, academia, academic, academically, academics, academies and 3092 more...
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4084 more...
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@vcb.etym.prjct - SAT Catchall
brainfood for my hungry, eager pupils
iconoclast, glacial, agnostic, histrionic, treacly, contemptuous, captious, bombastic, bombast, perfidy, quiescence, sordid and 148 more...
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gre
municipal, whit, dissembler, berate, liberally, embellish, dissimilitude, histrionics, flamboyance, bombastic, bovine, calumny and 142 more...
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Rhetorical Devices
syllepsis, zeugma, trope, wellerism, anastrophe, anaphora, apostrophe, metonymy, chiasmus, antimetabole, syncope, open-list and 431 more...
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common UA vocab. in US
Interesting, there is a traditional vocabulary of an Ukrainian, that differs from vocabulary of average American. It would be nice to explore it.
jackdaw, incongruous, cassock, vivid, magpie, humdrum, amongst, wonder, wandering, wheedling, wheedle, osseous and 368 more...
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Linguistic Terms
Words that (mostly) only linguists know.
arpabet, protologism, diacritic, macron, macaronic, capitonym, grapheme, boustrophedon, allograph, analphabetic, idiomatic, portmanteau and 39 more...
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Fun to Say
Oh-so-pronounceable words.
schwa, sprack, rubbly, swashbuckler, hecka, tartine, ambiguous, ghee, trapped in, abecedarius, highfalutin, dirigible and 24 more...
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Unclear
reesetee At least four of which use the word itself.... Aug 4, 2008
bilby It's just like WeirdNET to have 14 definitions for this word. Aug 3, 2008